Pakistan will soon become another North Korea – US

US National Security General H R McMaster has said that Pakistan uses terror as state policy and goes after terrorists ‘very selectively’ and if the country tries its nuclear capability as a lever to blackmail others, it would end up as another North Korea.
McMaster, a former US Army General, was speaking on US President Donald Trump’s New Year Day tweet on Pakistan in a Voice of America interview.

He said that the tweet speaks for itself where Trump blamed Pakistan for being a lying and deceitful country in spite of receiving huge US aid and helping those very terrorists the US hunts in the Afghanistan and pledged ‘no more US aid to Pakistan’.

McMaster said Pakistan’s double-dealings have frustrated Donald Trump and America. He said by very selectively going after terror groups, hitting some while choosing others as an arm of its foreign policy, Pakistan has not only betrayed the values America hoped would make for a great partnership, but also its own people.

“What’s frustrating at times is we see Pakistan operating against the interests of its own people by going after these groups only selectively, by providing safe havens and support bases for Taliban and Haqqani network leadership that operate out of Pakistan as they perpetuate hell in portions of Pakistan and in Afghanistan,” he said.

“America has great sympathy for the Pakistani people and in particular, how much they’ve suffered at the hands of terrorists who have victimized so many Pakistanis with mass murders, with that horrible mass murder in a school a few years ago,” McMaster says in the interview and emphasizes that for its own sake, the Pakistani government must go after these groups less selectively.

Putting the Trump tweet in a clear perspective, his NSA says this is not a blame game but an effort to communicate clearly to Pakistan that the US relationship can no longer bear the weight of contradictions, and that we have to really begin now to work together to stabilize Afghanistan, emphasizing that doing so would hugely benefit Pakistan.

PAKISTAN WOULDN’T WANT TO BECOME A PARIAH STATE

McMaster warns if Pakistan doesn’t want to become a pariah state, it will have to stop going after terror groups only selectively, and will have to stop providing safe havens and support bases and other forms of support for leadership.

On asking if any other country may step in to aid Pakistan in case the US pulls out, McMaster says he doesn’t think any country including China would like Pakistan to continue its support for terror groups like the Taliban or the Haqqani Network.

China may be Pakistan’s all-weather friend and has defended Pakistan in the wake of Trump tweet but it has a terrorist problem on its southern border that does have connections back into Pakistan, “It’s not going to be any other country in the region, certainly, who will want Pakistan to continue this, really, pattern of behaviour that we’ve seen, where it goes after these groups only selectively, while it sustains and supports others who act as an arm of its foreign policy.”

NUCLEAR BLACKMAIL WILL MAKE PAKISTAN ANOTHER NORTH KOREA

On the possibility of Pakistan using its nuclear capability as a leveraging tool, or to extort or blackmail, something that North Korea is doing, McMaster says he doesn’t think so, “It would just be unwise for any Pakistani leader – I can’t imagine a Pakistani leader using nuclear weapons to extort or for blackmail. That’s the day when Pakistan would become North Korea.”

He puts a very vital question before the Pakistani leadership, “Does Pakistan want to become North Korea? Doesn’t look too appealing a model to me. So, I think Pakistan could be on a path to increase security and prosperity, or it could be on a path to replicating North Korea. I think that’s an easy choice for Pakistani leaders.”